


(Day 1) Comfort

by mydwynter



Series: January Sherlock Vignette Challenge [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Awkwardness, D'AWWWWWW, Gen, January Sherlock Vignette Challenge, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:25:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydwynter/pseuds/mydwynter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John stopped short in surprise when he walked in the door and saw her. He was just about to turn around and leave—abandon ship, scuttle, swan off—when Molly looked up from her glass of wine and caught his eye. She gave him a wan smile.</p><p>
  <em>Damn.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Day 1) Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> My mind rebels in stagnation. So every day for the month of January I'm posting a Sherlock vignette, born out of prompts from generators and friends alike.
> 
> Also known as, "Mydwynter, just post the fucking thing."
> 
> Today's prompt: John, Molly, Hurt/Comfort, Angelo's, "Wine"   
> Thanks to Mazarin221B and HiddenLacuna for the beta!

John stopped short in surprise when he walked in the door and saw her. He was just about to turn around and leave—abandon ship, scuttle, swan off—when Molly looked up from her glass of wine and caught his eye. She gave him a wan smile.

_Damn._

Stifling a sigh, he pushed his way further into Angelo’s and halted tentatively next to her table. “Er. Hello Molly.”

“Hello John…” She said, catching his eye again briefly and then looking down into her drink.

John noticed the crumbs on the small plate at her elbow, deduced she had eaten a garlic knot, caught himself deducing, and felt his stomach clench painfully. “What…” _What are you doing here?_ he wanted to ask, but felt that might be a little too pointed, so he slid sideways into another question. “…What are you drinking?” A stupid question. It was obviously something white and syrupy. A cheap white zin.

“White zinfandel,” she said quietly, and shrugged. “I’m sorry to be in your…er…” Molly looked around at the restaurant, at the hustling waitstaff and lounging diners, and shrugged again. “I just…er.” She stared across the room, idly watching Angelo deliver a large piece of tiramisu to a laughing couple.

John nodded and swallowed. He thought to catch her eye and excuse himself from the conversation, but couldn’t muster the courage. Pathetic, really. He shouldn’t be cowed by Molly and her sad doe eyes, but they always managed to make him feel completely and utterly spineless.

She turned that big gaze up at him and he accidentally snagged himself on it. “Would you like to sit?” she said.

There was nothing for it but to give in. He ordered a pint and considered food, but his stomach was unsettled and he wanted to be able to flee at short notice so he sent the waiter off with a promise to let them bring him something later. 

Besides, food wasn’t really his reason for coming here tonight.

“I thought…” Molly started, then shook her head. “I thought perhaps…” Silence fell between them for a few breaths. She took a heavy breath. “It’s been a year.”

The words immediately pulsed through John’s veins with adrenaline, like a shock to the system. It _had_ been a year, but the suddenness of Sherlock’s absence still hadn’t faded with time. One year. To the day.

“I know,” was the only thing John could think of to say in response.

“Of course you do,” she said, forcing a laugh. “Right.” She looked sheepish and took a sip of the wine. They sat in awkward quiet again, then she piped up, “That’s probably why you’re here, isn’t it.”

John didn’t know how to answer _that_ , either. Odd, that her manner over the past year seemed constantly to be undermining all of John’s usual social ability, leaving him in silent ineptitude.

Molly finished her wine but kept fiddling nervously with the glass. “I wanted to come to a place that reminded me of him, but only a little. Not a lot.” She blinked, looking over John’s shoulder. “I miss him.” On the table, John’s fists tensed so hard his knuckles turned white. “Not as much as you must, though. You two…were… I’ve never been that close to anyone. Ever. I’m close with my mother, but that’s not really the same, is it? She loves me, but he…” Her eyes took in his face for a moment before skittering away. “It was different, the way he loved you.”

John had been a bit far away, only half listening, but at this his gaze focused. _What._

She glanced at his face, and his expression pulled her up short. “You didn’t know.”

“No.”

She tried on a giggle in an obvious attempt to push off the seriousness. “Of course you didn’t. He was really good at hiding it. But he did. Love you. I could see it, even if you couldn’t.” John just blinked at her, so she kept going. “He would do anything for you.”

“Would have done,” John said automatically, his throat tight.

Molly swallowed. “Right. Of course.” She put down the wine glass and started pushing crumbs around with her fingertip. “Yes.”

“He…loved me.” John’s brain kept fumbling on the words, like a cog that kept slipping and ruining the careful timing of the mechanism.

With a careful, stoic expression, Molly nodded. She was still poking at the remains of her bread.

“Oh.” John blinked, and breathed, and with a sudden, over-bright flash of realisation, knew. He felt it, deep down in his bones, as a million images played in front of his mind’s eye; the irritating amount of tea Sherlock tried to force on him when John had a cold, the suddenly-diligent way he began to label specimens after the run-in John had with the goo in the brown sauce bottle, the fact that each time they left the flat, without fail, Sherlock knew which jacket and which gloves John wanted to wear and had them to hand at the door. It was a million tiny little things that John had missed in the moment, but all together formed the picture of quiet, unostentatious devotion.

It was probably the least ostentatious part of Sherlock’s life.

The thought made John smile, and he huffed a wry laugh at himself. It was odd, but he felt better. Really, honest-to-god, better. By all rights, it should have been a travesty; Sherlock had quietly loved him, John might have loved him back, and now it was all for nothing. All that potential, slipped through their hands. But somehow, just the knowledge that while he had been alive Sherlock had gotten a chance to love and spend his days with the one he loved…it was bittersweet, but sweet nonetheless. John’s throat was tight and his eyes a bit damp, but he the corner of his mouth quirked. “Thanks,” he said to Molly. His voice came out a bit rough, so he cleared his throat then smiled down at his hands still fisted on the tabletop. He stretched his fingers, and they felt somehow free after all that tension. “Thanks for telling me, Molly. That’s… Thanks.”

“You’re, er. You’re welcome,” she said, picking up her empty glass again. “You deserve to know that.” She smeared the traces of her lip balm on the rim. “You really do deserve to know.”

John bobbed his head gently and wished the waiter already had brought his pint. “It helps, a little. Knowing.”

She finally looked at his face. “Good,” she said with a bit of a smile, and squeezed his hand for a moment. “I’m glad.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[ Day One ] Comfort](https://archiveofourown.org/works/630088) by [MacBean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MacBean/pseuds/MacBean)




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